Diary of a CDR novice

Ladies and Gentlemen-
I finally have my CDR up and running. I gave in and bought my own
unit from Media Source- a package from Smart & Friendly with a 2x Sony
drive Adaptec SCSI Lite card, and EZCDPro software. I installed the software
and it worked perfectly as soon as I rebooted. I proceeded to back up all my
floppy software and the contents of my hard drive. I checked the discs,
and they all read perfectly (I have used media by TDK, Verbatim and Sony
so far). The one spooky thing is that until you close the disk, you get
an "error reading disk" message several times before the disk will read.
This is because, until the disc is closed, the CD reader checks
each track separately and doesn't see the CD as being there until it
checks the last track (& other stuff about which I know not).
Then came the real test - recording music. I used my Windat
recorder to maked .wav files from some of my old cassettes (I even found
a usable recording of my high school band, and I'm 44 years old) and
created an archive the CDR. Success! All the files read properly. I
created several archives with no problems, and chose the ones I wanted to
place on an audio CD. These cuts I placed in a directory on my hard
drive. I then fired up EZCDPro and dragged and dropped the .wav file
icons into the window. I pressed record, and the machine whirred and
clicked away for about an hour(half an hour to do a test record, and half
an hour to record at double speed). I now have a perfectly functioning
and worthless CD chronicalling my musical development. Who wants to
hear my high school band back to back with noise music?
I have since made a couple of collections of favorite cuts for my
wife and have experienced no problems. I am currently preparing the .wav
files from last year's Microstock festival, and should have CDs ready in
a couple of weeks.

As to Brian M's concerns with the state of the art, I am in no
position to rebut his quoted experts as my personal sample size is too
small, but I believe he is being overly pessimistic. I can quote other
experts (no less expert than his) who will give a higher success rate for
CDR audio recordings. (If you want the quotes and sources, ask me and
I'll be glad to post them).
Although CDR technology is not perfect (which one is?) it is
constantly being improved, and who cares if you burn a bad CD? Drop the
$7.00 and burn another one!! The point I am trying to make is that I can
now make my own CDs for an investment of $617.00 and $7.00 per disk. When
I send my music to a radio station they can play it on the air with no
hassle. When I give a CD to a friend, it won't jam in the cassette player
and wrap arount the spindle.
Check out my web site at http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~jstarret/
for .wav file excerpts from Microstock 1. They will be posted sometime
this week, and will have been recorded on an old scratched Sony CDR disc
before transfer to the web files.

John Starrett

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> > Now understand that I don't doubt for a moment that tuning the seventh
> >sharper produces a MORE satisfying resolution. But 7:4 provides a
> >completely satisfying resolution to my ears, and many others'.
> The first sentence here seems to contradict everything else you're saying.
> Do you want to modify this statement?

Oh, no, not particularly. I was pointing out that a 4:5:6:7 dominant 7th
chord provides a completely effective authentic cadence, although a 9:5 or 16:9
seventh works better, all in all.

Certainly though, that depends a lot on how you're producing that cadence. I
suspect that, in the form of strummed guitar chords, the smaller stepwise
resolution of the flatter seventh would be less apparent (if even present at
all) than in, say, three-part chorale-like harmony.


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